


without him

by dunwalls



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Griefbanging, Hopeful Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Sexual Content, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 15:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18552139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunwalls/pseuds/dunwalls
Summary: “I- um.” Quentin interrupts the static in her head. He wriggles a little bit next to her, clearly just as uncomfortable, likely cold.“Shut the fuck up, Q.”





	without him

**Author's Note:**

> soooo we're ignoring the finale. This is basically what I wanted from season 4. Not necessarily the griefbanging but the lack of anything between Margo and Quentin this entire season was such a misstep and I thought, oh lemme write something about how they'd deal with the loss of Eliot and then went "oh, they'd bone. and cry, probably."

Soft panting is joined only by the sound of the blankets slipping off the end of the bed and hitting the floor and Margo, acutely aware of the space between her and Quentin and their nakedness, says nothing. Secluded away in Fillory while a monster runs rampant in her best friend’s body a world away arguably is the prime time for bad decision making, but Margo still wasn’t expecting the immediate regret.

“I- um.” Quentin interrupts the static in her head. He wriggles a little bit next to her, clearly just as uncomfortable, likely cold.

“Shut the fuck up, Q.”

 

*

 

Margo isn’t avoiding Quentin. She doesn’t _do_ that. He eventually scrambled out of her bed and into the clothes he’d worn during their research session and she just hadn’t run into him again that day. She assumed he spent the night in the library, making stacks of books that might reveal more than anything they’d read so far. She would find him, eventually; Margo has no plans on letting some ill-thought out, but thoroughly satisfying, sex ruin any chances they had of saving Eliot’s life.

It _had_ been good. Margo shifts in her throne. She’d never considered the quality of the sex she’d have with Q. She’s thought about sex with Alice more than sex with Quentin. Alice’s nervy but sharp, dedicated, she could work with that. Quentin? The one time she’d had sex with Q was mostly a blur and she’s not sure how much they actually did. After the mess that was the aftermath of the threesome, she never thought about it again. If she thinks about it hard enough, she can remember vague flashes of Quentin clambering into Eliot’s lap, or coquettishly sitting on the floor in front of them, or having her hands in his hair. But that honestly doesn’t tell her a lot _._

The point is Margo hasn’t seen him. She’s spent most of the morning in meetings with Tick and Fen, trying to find a solution to an issue some farmers have with some talking - _vulgar -_ sheep. She wasn’t really listening. Margo already had such little interest in running this damn country and has delegated almost everything to Fen who, once she had covered up her genuine grief in ridiculous rituals, had thrown herself into work to ignore how much she truly couldn’t bear the loss of Eliot. Margo’s _one_ job was to search the books available in Fillory for _something_ and now she’s fucked the last person she ever considered to get out of that, too.

“High King Margo?” Tick interrupted her thoughts. Maybe Q isn’t the _last_ person, then.

“ _Yeah_ , whatever you want. Adjourned, or- we’re done here.” She might have to go rub one out.

 

*

 

It happens again. Margo doesn’t lie in silence this time. “ _Goddamnit.”_

“Margo-”

“Could we get through this book first? Please, before fucking each other’s brains out?” She’s already out of bed, slipping back into the dress that Quentin spent too long trying to figure out how to- _anyway,_ Margo grabs the last book she’d been reading before Q’s incessant touching of his own mouth had gotten to her. It had barely been midday.

He hasn’t gotten out of bed. His mouth is very red.

“Come _on,_ do you want to save El? I know I rocked your world, Coldwater but we’ve got bigger things going on.”

“Yeah, yeah. Gimme a- okay.”

 

*

 

They sit opposite each other on the tiled floor of the bedroom. Margo’s still sort of warm from the sex so barely pays attention to the chill against her calves. She really didn’t think being in close proximity to a bed was going to be such a risk for her and _Coldwater,_ but library only from now on, she vows. Eliot needs her to be focused, needs them both to be focused and the more time they spend in bed, the less time she has to read these stupid _fucking_ books.

“We’re getting nowhere.” Quentin huffs after barely a couple of hours, throwing one of the books to the side. She can sense Rafe wincing from halfway across the castle. “Barely any of these even mention possession, and the ones that do are clearly not going to help us with something that’s been locked up in a castle for millenia.”

“So you’re suggesting what, exactly?” Her voice is brittle. They can’t just _stop._

“I don’t know, Margo! Jesus, I don’t _know._ ” His voice cracks and Margo is familiar with the inevitable tears. She’s sat with him through enough of them. “How are we supposed to help him when we’re _here_? By reading book after book of useless spells with no way of- you know what, I’m gonna send a rabbit for Penny.” He starts getting up.

“No, Q!” Margo leaps up as well, grabbing his shoulder. “What are we going to do there that we’re not fucking doing here? Torture ourselves with the _sight_ of him? Penny and Julia are doing nothing but reading books too but we have to cover all our bases and I need you _with_ me.”

He stills at her touch, looking vaguely in the direction of her arm. She wasn’t aware of how little they’ve touched outside of sex in the last two days until right now and she stills too. But she knows sex will keep him here, even for only a little bit longer. That’s how she rationalises it to herself anyway, and she nudges closer.

“I need you, Quentin. We both want him back and we both love him so we have to work together. I can’t do this by myself and I can’t abandon Fillory, as much as I want to.” She moves her hand along his arm, down to his fingers and squeezes tight. “Don’t fucking cock out on me.”

Quentin’s eyes flick all over her face and he rips his hand from hers to wrap it around the back of her neck and drag her into him. He was nervous the first time they did this - not the _first,_ first time but the first time here in Fillory - regardless of how quickly things progressed from research to fucking. His hands shook and he apologised too much and he accidentally grabbed her thighs too hard before pulling them around his head.

But now Q feels _confident._ Margo is impressed, and she pushes her mouth harder against his, invigorated by his initiative, and pulls him down by his ears to her height. Quentin kisses her desperately, his nose huffing breaths against her face. She’s never felt this frantic but from the couple of times she and Quentin have slept together, she knows he’s always this frenzied, like it could be interrupted any moment and she finds herself just as ready to rush into it with him.

Quentin also makes noises in the back of his throat, constantly, and he grunts now while pulling at her waist and thighs and shoving them over onto the bed. The backs of her knees briefly hurt at the collision with the bed frame but she backs herself up onto the mattress and pulls Quentin on top of her. Margo lets him kiss her neck and her collar and back up to her lips. She wriggles out of her dress again.

 

*

 

They fall asleep this time. Twice in one day is nowhere near a record for Margo but she’s hardly sleeping, her appetite is shot so _Quentin Coldwater_ has actually managed to take it out of her. Usually regret and grief swarm back in almost immediately and Margo is left clenching her thighs in the awkward aftermath and Quentin, the two times they’d done this before, plays with his own hands until one of them moves out of the bed. This time though, the regret hits when she wakes up that evening. She can hear servants and guards moving around in the hallway outside, likely preparing for dinner, and all Margo can think about is Eliot.

She subtly wipes at her eyes, hoping Quentin is still out. She _knows_ she took it out of _him_. Her thighs ached enough that she was sure of it. She knows he’ll be asleep for another hour at least. She also knows that Quentin is fucking away the ache in his chest over Eliot. Eliot hadn’t ever filled her in on what changed for them in the last year but she knows _him_ inside and out. Margo was there when Eliot sat on his hands to stop himself from drinking after Quentin announced his plans to stay in Blackspire. She was the one who helped him find the gun and the bullet and she held his hands tight when he told her what he was going to do.

Margo has also caught Quentin a couple times in the weeks they’ve been in Fillory, clenching his fists in frustration and knuckling away frustrated, heartbroken tears in the library, most often, but all over the palace. If she had any inkling of what hangs in the space between the two of them, she was sure of it now, after watching Q waste away with his head in yellowing pages.

Margo never regrets sex, she never lets herself feel bad about who she fucks or where or when and yet, this time she cannot rid herself of the _fucking_ guilt. She knows she’s a fill-in for Eliot for Quentin, a warm body that he loves nonetheless, but not one he wants like this. Margo has had sex like this before, with one person thinking about another (it doesn’t stay that way for long, she’s _very_ good) but this is _Eliot._ This is Quentin using her to stop thinking about _Eliot._

She doesn’t want to admit that Quentin’s the same for her. Margo doesn’t feel that way for Eliot, and certainly knows he doesn’t feel that way for her, but lying in bed like this with the sound of Quentin’s breathing in her ears is familiar enough that she aches. Eliot diving into her bed to detail his last sexual exploit, to tell her about another upcoming nature kids party that she’d have to convince him out of, to cuddle up to her and reveal secret after secret, quietly. Eliot has been in her bed so many hundreds of times that Quentin doing the same is enough.

How foolish she and Eliot had been, trying to keep Quentin from a lifetime of servitude to a monster in a castle thinking there’d be no consequences. Margo knows deep down she would trade Quentin and Eliot’s places in a heartbeat and she hates herself so suddenly that she sobs.

Q makes a low noise in his throat so Margo pulls on her dress, again, and leaves.

 

*

 

“We need to stop doing this.” Surprisingly Q is the one to say it. Margo has been harbouring the same belief for days, knows that this reliance on each other’s bodies and warmth will never be as fulfilling as they hope it will be, but she had also almost convinced herself the orgasms were enough.

“Yeah, no fucking shit, Q.” She spits quietly. This is the sixth time. Margo kept her vow of no more researching in her bedroom for a good couple of days, but it just resulted in Quentin pushing inside while she supported herself against one of the bookshelves in the library, her hand over her mouth.

“You’re not _him.”_

“Obviously.” It’s half-hearted at best.

“You won’t ever-” Quentin breathes in shakily. “I know you know.”

“Yes.” Neither of them have looked away from the ceiling.

“And you fucked me anyway?”

“Don’t fucking put this on me.”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have- I know it was my idea.”

“Stop it.” Margo finally looks at him. He’s red from face to chest and his eyes are welling up with tears again. She hates when he cries, just as much as she hates when she cries herself, just as much as she hates when Eliot cries. She grabs his arm. “We both chose to do this. Q, it’s just _sex.”_

“ _Is it?_ ” He finally meets her eyes. “It’s not just sex. It’s a fucking distraction from everything, when we should be doing everything we can to help him. _I_ should be doing _more._ I should be-” He covers his face, crying quietly behind them. “I _always_ do this. Throw myself into sex like it’ll fix _anything._ What if nothing fixes this? We don’t even know he’s alive!”

“ _Don’t_ say shit like that, Q. Fen did six rituals to commemorate his _death,_ Tick is already asking about funds for a monument. You’re the only _one-”_ Margo breathes in sharply, tears spilling over onto her furious cheeks. “You’re the only one who still believes we can fix this. Do not leave me alone in this. I will never fucking forgive you if you give up on him.”

Quentin rolls onto his side to face her. “You know I could never.”

His body is lax, resigned, likely against his will. Q is no stranger to hunched limbs. His face is tense, screwed up, endlessly sad in every line. Margo uncurls her fingers from around his arm and moves her hand to his face, strokes at his tears. “If anyone is gonna get him back, it’ll be us.”

“You believe that?”

“I have to. Now let’s get on with it, sad sack.”

 

*

After that conversation, Margo can still see the twitch in Quentin’s face when he’s thinking about crawling across the distance between them and prompting her into reclining so he can start shuffling her dress up her thighs to bunch around her waist. But he refrains. She finds herself thinking about his hands and his mouth and his dick in turn. They stick to reading.

When research goes on for hours, Margo finds her thoughts wandering even more. She starts wondering whether her harness is still at Brakebills and if it’s worth going back for or if she could just get a tanner to make her a new one. She catches herself staring at his legs and thinks about him braced on his hands and knees, mouth red, wet and open. She looks at his face and realises he’s blushing, possibly - _hopefully -_ thinking about the exact same thing. Margo quirks an eyebrow at him and he shoves his nose back into a tome.

Margo thinks they’re likely not going to sleep together again, but she does hope Quentin would be amenable to her fucking him if Eliot had Q’s mouth in use.

 

*

 

They fall asleep in the same bed often. They haven’t fucked again, not since they both cried over Eliot and were all-round fucking _embarrassing._ Only a moment of pure exhaustion where Quentin pressed his mouth against hers and barely pursed his lips before pulling away and lying down in her lap instead. She stroked his hair instead of getting off and she’s still making fun of herself for it.

They collapse into bed, useless books littering the floor, and pass out next to each other enough that it becomes a routine. Spend all day reading books that stink of dust, think about fucking each other constantly, don’t fuck each other, get their hopes up over a word that ends up translating to something unusable and end up falling asleep, limbs splayed over each other again and again and again.

They wake up one morning far too closely entwined for Margo’s comfort, with Quentin’s face nuzzled into her hair. She shoves him off and he blinks awake, squirming a decent distance away from her but smiling sleepily at her while he does it. She instinctively smiles back. She’s so endlessly fucking _fond_ of him. She can see why Eliot’s always liked him; the curls in his hair, his wide smile, his _love._ She’s starting to come round to the idea that she’s always liked him too.

He kisses her. She blinks in surprise and raises a sole, pointed eyebrow at him. Are exhausted kisses going to become a thing with him? Quentin shrugs. “You kiss Eliot all the time.”

“Yeah bu-”

“On the mouth.”

“I _know._ But it’s different.”

“Is it?”

“ _Yes._ Me and Eliot don’t spend our time fucking away memories of you.”

“Not even once?” He laughs and Margo is so relieved. It’s a rare sound these days and she pokes her finger into one of his cheeks, rolling her eyes. “Not even while you were off ruling Fillory together, missing me _desperately?”_

“No, sorry to disappoint, baby.” She’s grinning, they both are, but it doesn’t last; the memories of her and Eliot together in Fillory trickle back in and her cheeks relax back into the neutral frown she’s been wearing for months. “We’re gonna get him back.” It might be a question.

“You did say that, yes.” Quentin is just as suddenly forlorn. Her doubt must show in the twist of her mouth. “We _will,_ Margo. Nothing could keep you two apart.”

“I’ll make sure you two get your shit together, too.” There’s an unhappy almost-flinch in his face that she doesn’t comment on. She tucks his hair behind his ear instead. “Back to the books?”

“Back to the books.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to the btyk server for reading through this for me and encouraging me the whole time! (best server ever)  
> also i'm highquinn on tumblr.


End file.
